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If 8000 5 year olds perform a novel task and the vast majority of them perform the task like the average 5 year old and 4 perform, the first time attempted, task like a 10 year old, what would you call those 4 performers?
I’d call them talented.

Yup. I think it is wishful thinking to imagine there is no such thing as talent, or that the brain is a completely blank slate at birth. I also think talent or lack thereof will put a ceiling on what one can hope to achieve. You can study all you like: not everyone gets to be Mozart or Michelangelo or Newton.

However, the good news is that even without any talent, the ceiling is pretty high. So high that for many practical purposes it actually doesn't matter. Not everyone gets to be Mozart, but work hard enough and you can reach professional or near professional level in just about any field.

The question is how hard you are willing to work. I think willingness to endure frustration and boredom for the sake of some goal is perhaps part of talent, or is a unique talent in itself. :-)

JFierce: Do not be so quick to dismiss the connection between writing and images. I believe you hve missed something that is very useful to this discussion.

Is visual memory different from any other form of memory? Is the ability to remember a sequence of events different from visualising those events?
'Memory showmen' use techniques of story association to remember quantities of unrelated information that appears superhuman to onlookers.
That is to say, they have structured the information to facilitate access. For what is a story but the structuring of life events to give comprehension, context and meaning to them, and when a thing has meaning it is much easier to remember.
Stucture is salient to story and pictures.
In what way?
Nouns and objects do not a story or picture make. Verbs, connections, beats and links are what shape it into pattern: And we remember pattern. It's what our minds are wired up to do in order to survive. Pattern is organised, and organised means it can either eat me or be eaten, dangerous or useful. The better we recognise pattern the better the chance to survive.
So.
As we improve our pattern recognition (grammar and vocabulary of shape in its broadest sense) in any discipline; so our memory appears to improve.

But, I think you're making a "distinction without a difference." Here's why: the OP is pretty much doing exactly the "looking and putting" that you referred to! He's not claiming that he left his ref picture up on Degas' 4th floor or out in an Australian barnyard.

He's using his short-term memory to reproduce pieces of the drawing as he progresses. How's that any different than how anybody draws an object within their visual range? From what he's described, he would have been running up Degas' stairs quite a number of times to complete his master copy.

Now, for actually drawing an object completely from memory, I would think having a "schema" would be doubly important in organizing just what it is that you are going to put on the blank paper after you return from the barnyard. That's why I bring up Hale and Hogarth. Marko Djurjevic [sp.], as a child, spent long hours copying Hogarth's DFD thinking at the time that all real artists worked from memory. This paid off, and I think there's video of him doing realistic detailed figure drawings without any prior construction devices.

But, Hale would say this is because he internalized those devices and can now visualize where his contours need to go. This would be different than just either eyeballing contour and reproducing it or memorizing complete complex contours and reproducing them solely from memory.

For instance, if we put a map of the coastline of Lake Michigan up on Degas 4th floor, how long do you want to study it before you go downstairs and try to draw it!

Well, whatever the OP was doing, in that quote I was simply referring to the fact that memorizing the individual characteristics of a particular subject is clearly not the same thing as memorizing a generalized schema of the human figure. As it happens I do both, but others might do either one without the other.

However the most important point to repeat is that applying visual memory doesn't necessarily involve running up and down stairs. It's something you can apply in every drawing you do. The difference between that and passive copying is well explained in the Henri quote and its continuation in the book.

I've never been a big fan of the term "visual memory" and what it implies, or does not imply. For one it's just a catch phrase that essentially means "learning to draw". You don't have to break it down into technical minutiae and then banter about semantics and definitions all day long. For another how is it different from "musical memory"...or "literary memory"? There is just a craft to these endeavors that is part of their experience and learning curve.

The reason I don't like the term is because I think, whether it exists or not and is part of how we process visual interpretation, it can be confusing to the beginner and is really a minor sideling aspect of drawing. Just my two yen...

The Following User Says Thank You to JeffX99 For This Useful Post:

It seems like not everyone finds fascinating the ability to visualize an image in your mind and project that image into the paper, either you are working from observation or from imagination, specially doing it from imagination, it must be a great feeling to project your initial idea in the paper with as much detail as you can. The final result might look very different, but it gives you a kind of control over your ideas.
But we are all different, some people prefer to first put marks on the paper and then visualize as they go..

Well, whatever the OP was doing, in that quote I was simply referring to the fact that memorizing the individual characteristics of a particular subject is clearly not the same thing as memorizing a generalized schema of the human figure. As it happens I do both, but others might do either one without the other.

However the most important point to repeat is that applying visual memory doesn't necessarily involve running up and down stairs. It's something you can apply in every drawing you do. The difference between that and passive copying is well explained in the Henri quote and its continuation in the book.

Hey briggsy,

I think there are several different concepts floating around here. But, the two major categories in which they reside are: short-term visual memory and long-term visual memory.

What the OP has described is use of short-term memory. What you're shooting at is, as I read it, the use and development of long-term memory. Some would call this building up your "visual library."

As such, the OP is not doing anything other than relying on short-term memory to copy a drawing bit by bit. To which I would say, well, how does anybody copy a drawing WITHOUT using their short-term memory?

(I understand what you're saying about the pre-digested schema. But, my take is that Hogarth would have us believe that he's producing his work from memory in the same manner as Kim Jung Ji in the above video, with the pre-digested schema being more training wheels for students of his method.)